In the orange-hued, jack-o-lantern bucket of social media tactics, let’s talk about six social media strategy must-do’s to treat your audience to often to grow your community and build your brand — and five common social media blunders that will feel more like tricks than treats.
Author: Caitlin Kryl
Scary marketing statistic: Nearly half of entrepreneurs do their marketing all by themselves*.
This tells us two things:
- If you’re a business leader out there bootstrapping your social media, you’re not alone!
- The stakes are especially high when you’re juggling fundraising, business development, team building, AND bringing forth a brand personality and messaging that reaches the right people to fuel that growth.
Whether you’re a CEO moonlighting as your company’s social media manager, work with a talented marketing generalist who is juggling a lot, or contract with an agency to help you scale your content, it’s important to take stock of whether you’re making the most effective use of your resources to move the needle on social media.
In the orange-hued, jack-o-lantern bucket of social media tactics, let’s talk about six social media strategy must-do’s to treat your audience to often in order to grow your community and build your brand — and five common social media blunders that will feel more like tricks than treats.
(And then I’ll lay this metaphor to rest, I promise!)
Treats 😇
✅ Answer the questions your audience is asking.
Focus on sticking points in your sales and/or partnership process and provide bite-sized content that helps answer key questions before your audience even asks them.
✅ Think beyond brand social.
Your c-suite’s social media is one of the best ways to boost brand visibility and garner authentic engagement from your desired audiences. 59% of b2b decision makers agree that an organization’s thought leadership is a more trustworthy source for assessing a company’s capabilities than the company’s marketing material. (Edelman B2B Thought Leadership Study)
✅ Empower your employees to be brand advocates.
Content shared by employees receives 8x more engagement than content shared by brand channels. (Social Media Today)
✅ Interact with high-visibility accounts.
Regular engagement with social media influencers and communities that share your desired audience is an essential strategy for growth.
✅ Show off your personality.
Don’t be afraid to show off how your team likes to have fun, and what makes your company unique. It’s more interesting and relevant to your audiences than you think.
✅ Provide value right within the platform.
Your audience is looking for an opportunity to be engaged, educated, and entertained on social media. Make sure you provide those benefits within the social platform instead of always linking off to blogs or articles.
Tricks 😈
❌ Over promotion.
Be dimensional in your messaging. It’s okay to talk about your product within the content mix, but make sure your content offers something your audience can take away rather than just selling to them. Try this age-old content marketing test: How often does your content use “we” (company-focused) instead of “you?” (customer-focused)
❌ Not engaging with your audience.
Social media is a conversation! Monitor for audience comments, shares, and other opportunities to engage in discussion with your audience, provide greater value and insight, and take your content deeper.
❌ Not optimizing for each platform.
Don’t treat your content as a monolith! Your audience and their desires will differ from platform to platform. The video content, and even the brand tone that’s most effective on Instagram and Twitter might not perform the same way on platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter.
❌ Trying to be everywhere at once.
You need 60 people, not 6 billion. Where does your audience primarily engage? It’s always better to continue sharing genuine, engaging content on a few solid channels than to spread your efforts too thinly. To be targeted, especially when bootstrapping social, is to be efficient.
❌ Hiding too much value behind links.
Gone are the days of posting “Check it out on our blog!” and calling it a day. If the majority of your content isn’t at least partially consumable within the platform, missing out on an opportunity to grow a community of like-minded individuals who understand the value your company provides your industry.
Even if you’ve been in the social media world for a while, the landscape is constantly (constantly!) shifting, so make sure you’re keeping tabs on what works in 2023 vs five years ago. Some great resources are Hootsuite’s or HubSpot’s social media channels and/or blogs.
My key takeaway for you: Social media “tricks” occur when you lose focus on your audience and their needs.
We’re in an attention economy, so rather than focusing on quantity, it’s better to be strategic and focus on the quality of content your brand puts out into the world.
Note: This article was originally published on LinkedIn.
*Source: Fundera Small-Business Marketing Statistics and Trends